There is a trend in agricultural industries towards larger equipment. One of the consequences is that the headers for agricultural combines become wider and heavier. The increasing weight of the header particularly requires a strong and rigid connection to the main frame of the agricultural combine.
Headers are typically connected to a front end of the agricultural combine via a feeder and an actuator. The feeder is connected to an upper segment of the front end of the agricultural combine while the actuator is connected to a lower segment of the front end of the agricultural combine. Both the feeder and the actuator are pivotally connected to the front end of the combine so that by operating the actuator, the height of the header with respect to the combine body can be adapted. The header is adapted to gather crop material from a field and to transport the crop material via the feeder towards the body of the agricultural combine.
Additional or optional crop processing features can be added to the agricultural combine by mounting a module between the feeder and the body of the agricultural combine. An example of such additional or optional features is a stone remover, which is known in the art as a dynamic feed roll (DFR) mechanism or module. Such module is typically firmly bolted to the upper segment of the front end of the agricultural combine, and the feeder is connected to the module so that the crop material is transported from the feeder through the module to the body of the agricultural combine.
A drawback of the current situation with the dynamic feed roll module is that all forces and tensions resulting from carrying the header are transmitted via the module to the agricultural combine. This requires the connection between the module and the agricultural combine, as well as the frame structure of the module itself, to be extremely rigid. On the one hand, such extremely rigid connection and module increases the weight of the agricultural combine, and on the other hand it increases the costs.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a more cost and weight efficient connection between the header and the agricultural combine.